Creating a Floor Plan with Colors and Patterns

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1 Home Designer Software Creating a Floor Plan with Colors and Patterns Reference Number: KB Last Modified: July 16, 2015 The information in this article applies to: QUESTION I would like to create a colored oor plan of my structure. What are the methods available for accomplishing this task? ANSWER There are several ways to create a colored oor plan in Home Designer Pro that we will discuss in this article, including: Colored Fill Patterns and Line Styles Rendered Image Floor Plans Vector Image Floor Plans Colored Fill Patterns and Line Styles To be able to have a colored floor plan where the openings are easy to view and where you can use the Text tools directly to annotate and view the Room Types; simply

2 change the colors you currently have assigned for the various items in your 2D floor plan view. To set the color of rooms 1. Using the Select Objects tool to click in a room to select it, then choose the Open Object edit tool to display the Room Specification dialog. 2. Go to the FILL STYLE panel and use the Type drop down menu to select a Fill Pattern. 3. Next, set its Spacing, Angle, Line Weight, and Fill/Pattern Color.

3 4. Once you have finished making your changes, click OK to apply them to the floor plan and close the dialog. Depending on the color that you have chosen for your room, you may notice the room label and other objects blend with the room color. Home Designer Pro gives you the ability to change the background color for your room labels, and our Chief Architect Premier ( version of the software also allows you to set a ll color for other objects such as cabinets, furniture, xtures, appliances, etc can all have a ll color applied to them. To change the background color for your room labels 1. Use the Select Objects tool to select the text of the Room Label and choose the Open Object edit tool to display the Room Label Specification dialog. 2. On the FILL STYLE panel, you can click on the box to specify the background you

4 want for this room label. Black text with a white fill style was used in our example. If you want to be able to change the actual text of a Room Label (such as from Bedroom to Child's Bedroom), in Home Designer Pro 9.0 and newer versions, you can open the Room Speci cation dialog and type in what you want in the Room Name eld on the General tab. In Home Designer Pro 8.0 and prior, you have to open the Room Label's Text Speci cation dialog to change the text of a room label. 3. Repeat this process until all of the room labels backgrounds have been updated. In some cases, we may want to change the color, or line style, that is applied to an object in our 2D oor plan view. For example, electrical objects display as a bright red, and we may want to change their outline to black instead.

5 To change the line color 1. Select Tools>Display Options. 2. Scroll down to the layer that you want to change, such as Electrical, and click on the Color that is previewed there to change it. 3. Note that you can also change the line style, so if we wanted to have a dashed line instead of a continuous one, we would change this here for that layer as well. 4. The Layer Display Options dialog is also where we can turn off the display of certain objects. For example: If we did not want to see any of the invisible walls used to separate out sections of the plan, we could scroll down to Walls, Invisible and remove the checkmark from the Disp column.

6 5. Once you have finished making changes in this dialog, click OK to apply them to your 2D floor plan view. Rendered Image Floor Plans To create a rendered oor plan 1. First, launch Home Designer Pro and choose to Open the plan in which you would like to create a rendered floor plan view. 2. Once the file is open, select 3D> Create Orthographic View> Orthographic Doll House View. 3. Once the view is generated, select 3D> View Direction> Top View.

7 4. Finally, select 3D> Rendering Techniques> Standard. 5. With the camera view still active, select 3D> Camera View Options> Final View to smooth out the edges on the design. 6. You can then export the view by selecting File> Export> Export Picture to give the image a name and save it onto your computer. If you would like to be able to add text to your rendered oor plan, such as to add Room Name labels, you can choose to reimport the exported picture le into a new, blank oor plan. Then click File> Import> Import Picture to bring the image back in to the software, where you can then use the Text tools to annotate the design by manually adding text elements such as room names. While this option of a rendered oor plan provides the most realistic looking results, you will notice that it can be di cult to tell where door and window openings are located, unless you use the Cross Section Slider and adjust the position such that the walls above the door and window openings get cut o, as in the example below. To access the Cross Section Slider, from the menu select 3D>Camera View Options>Cross Section Slider.

8 Vector Image Floor Plans Your second option is for creating create a colored oor plan is to use the Vector rendering technique, instead of the Standard one.

9 To create vector oor plan 1. First, launch Home Designer Pro (version 9.0 or newer) and choose to Open the plan in which you would like to create a rendered floor plan view. 2. Once the file is open, select 3D> Create Orthographic View> Orthographic Doll House View. 3. Next, select 3D> View Direction> Top View. 4. You can then export the view by selecting File> Export> Export Picture to give the image a name and save it onto your computer. If you would like to be able to add text to your rendered oor plan, you can choose to reimport the exported picture le into a new, blank oor plan, and use File> Import> Picture to bring the image back in to the

10 software, where you can then use the Text tools to annotate the design by manually adding text elements such as room names. While this option provides the clean line drawing look for the results, you will notice that it can still be difficult to tell where door and window openings are located. A tip for modifying a vector camera oor plan, while in this view, if we decide that we want to change the Pattern currently applied to a material, we can do so using the Adjust Material De nition tool. To change the pattern displayed in an Orthographic view 1. While in your Orthographic Dollhouse view, select 3D> Materials> Adjust Material Definition and click on the surface that has the material we want to change to display the Define Material dialog. 2. On the GENERAL panel, you can change the Height, Length, Material and Pattern Line colors, as well as other features of the pattern you have selected.

11 3. The Adjust Material Definition dialog can be used to change the pattern originally applied to the flooring material in the kitchen to the Octagon material type, and set the Pattern Lines to black. To learn more about the Define Material dialog, in the program, click on the Help button located near its bottom right corner Chief Architect, Inc. Terms of Use ( Privacy Policy (